Does anyone else deal with very vivid false memories? Like when I worry I did something bad I will imagine it in detail and then start to worry it’s real. I always hear people say false memories are different than real memories but mine look very similar. Is anyone else like this?

I’m reaching out for educational and self-awareness purposes, hoping to better understand something I’ve been mentally struggling with for several years. Around five years ago, I began having a deeply distressing memory involving the fear that I may have acted inappropriately toward my younger sister when I was around 13–14 years old. The details are vague, fragmented, and unclear—but ever since this thought first appeared, I’ve treated it as if it were a real event. I’ve carried immense guilt, fear, and anxiety for years, convinced that I must have done something horrible. Despite asking my sister (who remembers absolutely nothing, has never shown signs of discomfort, and has told me more than once that she would’ve spoken up if anything had happened), the doubt and guilt never went away. The memory feels real, yet there is no external confirmation, no direct recall, and no evidence beyond my own mental images and fear. I’ve also struggled with obsessive thoughts in other areas, such as health anxiety since childhood—frequent doctor visits, checking my pulse, obsessing over illness—and only recently learned about false memory OCD, which aligns with my experience. I’m not currently seeking therapy but would greatly appreciate your professional opinion from an educational perspective: Does this sound more like a real memory, or more likely a false memory created by OCD or anxiety-related mechanisms I am stuck between a normal person or a s*xual abuser

I have had the same false memory/instrusive image of me doing something horrible to someone when I was 12 and they were younger. It is a memory based on a real event. I truly don’t know if it’s real or not but obviously, the more I think about it the more I think it’s true. This has led my mind to become slightly paranoid. I worry that if this horrible image in my head is true then one day the person I might have hurt will come and k*ll me. I’m really scared I feel like I won’t feel better as long as this “memory” is in my head. Does anyone have advice?

can a false memory feel very very very real? because i literally don’t know if something happened or not. absolutely no clue but it feels so real